


Straight Down The Line

by stereomer



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:12:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereomer/pseuds/stereomer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boxing AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Straight Down The Line

Frank Iero gets into his first fight on the fourth day of preschool when his deskmate, Sherry Stubbs, won’t share her Sunshine Yellow crayon. He doesn’t really like her much. She’s one of three kids who don’t share their food during lunchtime and her hand sweats in his whenever they have to line up and file back into the classroom after recess. He’s nice enough though, because his parents remind him everyday before dropping him off: “Be nice, Frankie,” they say sternly as his dad squats down and puts his hands on Frank’s shoulders. 

“Can I borrow that crayon?” he asks. 

She ignores him. 

“Sherry. May I please borrow that crayon?” He says it more politely, amending the question to the way his mother has taught him on countless occasions, but which he never remembers to use until the second time around. 

“No,” she finally replies. She keeps shading a rickety picture of a house with hard scribbles that zig-zag outside the lines. 

This is new. Everyone in the class either shares or takes turns; nothing is ever theirs and theirs only. “Let me borrow that crayon,” Frank tries one last time.

Silently, Sherry puts down her own crayon and reaches for the Sunshine Yellow with a smug expression. When her pudgy hand finds it, Frank fists his Sea Blue so that the sharp end is poking out, and then slams it onto her knuckles without second thought. 

 

*

 

Frank Iero gets into his first fistfight in the sixth grade during recess, when Brandon Kapinsky lumbers across the invisible baselines and into their game of kickball, stealing the ball mid-serve. He runs off with it, but Frank catches up to him easily as both teams watch from the distance. 

“Hey, we were playing,” Frank says, once he’s close enough. 

Brandon sneers at him. He’s tall but wide-set, with meaty forearms splotched red with blood vessels and curly hair that emphasizes the roundness of his face. He turns away to throw the ball against the fence. There’s a shudder of metal links as it absorbs most of the force, but the ball rebounds and he catches it. 

“Fuck off.”

“Give it back, man.” Frank narrows his eyes when Brandon gives him the finger and starts to walk away while dribbling the ball. The hollow rubber echoes with every bounce. Pong, pong, pong, pong – 

It stops abruptly when Frank pulls Brandon around by the shoulder and swings his arm with every intention of breaking his nose. As it is, he catches Brandon’s cheekbone instead. The first time he’s ever punched someone and he doesn’t even know who’s hurting more: Brandon or himself, as the bones in his hand throb rhythmically with hot pulses of pain. 

“Jesus Christ,” Frank grits out, squeezing his wrist with his other hand. Brandon’s sprawled out on the blacktop – Frank realizes he’s crying, and doesn’t do anything but watch him dumbly until the yard monitor finally runs over.

 

*

 

Frank Iero gets into his last fistfight in high school, when he gets shoved into a locker and laughed at one too many times. He’d endured it for almost two years – promotion to junior year, to being an upperclassman, is just around the corner, pretty much guaranteeing that he’ll get jumped a lot less, but he can’t bring himself to sit around passively any longer. 

“Hey,” he calls out, slipping his thumbs under the straps of his backpack and shrugging it off without bothering to see where it lands. His voice echoes through the breezeway, still unfamiliarly deeper than he remembers.

Robert Bryar straightens up from the vending machines with a Pepsi in his hand. 

“Frankie,” he says. It’s all he has time to say before Frank walks up to him and, despite the fact that the top of his head probably comes up to Robert’s shoulder, punches him in the mouth. Hard and fast, the way he’d learned after a lifetime of being short but quick on his feet. 

Robert doubles over and stumbles back at the same time, his ass hitting the glowing face of the soda machine. He has both hands clamped over his mouth; his breathing sounds cavernous. Frank has always wondered about this instinct to cradle an injury, not even rubbing or massaging the pain away. Just to hold onto it with careful, cupped hands – like a secret, even in the reluctance to trust anyone else with it. 

After several moments, Robert experimentally lifts his hands off and his fingers come away glistening with red. 

“Have a nice fucking life,” Frank spits out. The blood looks bad, but probably doesn’t hurt all that much. Mostly the work of Robert’s own teeth cutting into his lip. Frank leaves it at that, only because Robert is always one of the ones just standing around and watching as some asshole pushes a hand against Frank’s head until it hits the back of the locker. 

“What the fuck, you fucking dick!” he yells as Frank is walking away. 

His backpack is sitting facedown in the middle of the breezeway, empty save for a few pencils and a take-home final. Frank scoops it up by one strap and swings it over his shoulder with a little too much force as leftover adrenaline rushes through his muscles. Before he can loop his arm through the other strap, Robert grabs it and forces Frank to turn. 

“What the hell was that,” Robert hisses, staring down at him. 

Frank stares back. “Just a parting gift before you graduate and make nothing of yourself.”

“What did I ever do to you?” Robert shoves Frank a little on the last word, hard enough that he has to take a few steps back to regain his balance. Robert’s got unblinking eyes and a deliberateness to his movements, a combination that calls on Frank’s instinct to run, to cut across the front of the school and the parking lot, to let his feet carry him further away with every pounding step. 

Instead, he sneers, “Oh, sorry, standing by and laughing while I get surrounded by every stupid asshole at this school is actually commendable. My mistake.” He walks forward until he’s face to face with Robert again. 

Robert straightens up, more subconsciously than anything else. He stares at Frank some more without saying anything, but the silence isn’t oafish. Instead, it almost seems like he’s sizing Frank up. When his mouth finally moves, it’s not to sound death threats or insults about Frank’s mom, but to smile, open-mouthed with bloody teeth and all. It makes Frank nervous. 

In a rather conversational tone, Robert says, “Hey.”

Frank tries not to look surprised. “What,” he says warily. He doesn’t know what to expect. He makes fists with his hands, just in case. 

Robert wipes away the red that tinges the seam of his lips with a practiced swipe of his thumb. He examines it, then glances up. “Have you ever thought about boxing?”

 

*

 

Frank Iero gets scheduled for his first organized fight on the night of April 17th. The city is covered with an unseasonable blanket of humidity that makes people move slowly, limbs seeming waterlogged, but Frank needs to work against that and move fast fast fast. 

“Faster,” Brian orders, both hands closed over the top rope, feet balancing on the edge of the ring. 

Frank grunts through his mouthpiece and dances up on his tiptoes despite the columns of fire in his calves. Not in time though, because Bob manages to get in a hard jab to Frank’s stomach, glove slipping a little against the sweat that’s covering every inch of him. Frank's arms reflexively drop down to protect his ribs and Bob takes the opportunity to land a hook that glances across the side of his head. They exchange a flurry of punches, each giving as good as they’re getting, and the gym echoes with the sounds of gloves slapping against skin, rapid and arrhythmic. 

“Get out of there, come on,” Brian calls, even as Frank is finally moving away from the corner that Bob’s trying to trap him into. “Wake up. Think about where you are, where you’re going.”

Frank shakes his head in quick little jerks to get rid of that cloudy feeling coming over his eyes. Bob’s figure moves in and out of his vision as he peeks out from behind his forearms. Frank moves back a few feet, then forward and feints left before his leg tenses, back straightening up, shoulder muscles cocked, and drives in a jab with his right. Bob’s head snaps to the side – Frank connects again with his left glove and follows it up with a hit to Bob’s abdomen. He hears the harsh punch of breath leaving Bob’s mouth.

Brian encourages, “Good, great, move away now,” pushing down the rope a little as he leans closer.

“I am,” Frank yells back. He gets to the middle, several feet away from Bob just as Brian yells, “Okay, okay, round!”

They both drop their arms immediately – the slump of relaxation that comes over their bodies is almost palpable. Bob curls his fingers underneath the edge of his headgear and flips it off his forehead, leaving his hair clumped into wet spikes. His cheeks are shiny red, almost the same color as their gloves. 

“You’re getting better,” he pants thickly, grinning through the plastic covering his teeth. 

“Not much of a compliment, coming from you,” Frank quips as he removes his gloves and takes out his mouthpiece to several strands of clinging saliva. He ducks under the ropes and heads toward the industrial fan, quickly shedding everything except for his shorts along the way. Cool torrents of air wash over him; he droops his chin toward his chest and breathes. 

Brian comes up behind him and starts kneading his shoulders, thumbs digging into the muscles of his upper back. “You got it, Frank. It’s just a matter of whether you fuck up or not.”

Frank smiles with his eyes closed. He drops his head back, letting his mouth fall open, as Brian digs harder. He says, “I won’t,” quietly enough that the words get drowned out by the whirring of the fan.

Later, Frank will remember the thick stench of sweat from spectators and fighters alike, and the swinging ceiling lamps with their yellowed, flickering bulbs. Brian’s voice, cursing loudly; Bob sitting forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands fisted against his mouth. The feel of the ring beneath his feet as he blinked saltwater out of his eyes – tears or sweat, he couldn’t tell – while tasting blood on his gums, and how the bruises on his ribs stretched bright with pain when, at the end of the night, the referee grabbed his right wrist and pulled it up high for all to see.


End file.
